The Bay Area

3 credits · Undergraduate

This course examines the distinct but ill-defined San Francisco Bay Area. Our approach will be neither to simply learn about the individual places that compose the Bay Area nor to study a succession of detached periods of development. Instead, we will think critically about the creations, contestations, and transformations of Bay Area spaces—landscapes, communities, neighborhoods, cities, suburbs, and the metropolitan region. Topics include indigenous geographies, colonialism, industrialization and economic geography, cities and suburbs, gentrification and displacement, regional racial formation and place-based identities, and resistance and rebellion.